SEO-friendly WordPress Templates
-
Hi,
I usually build WordPress sites and I was thinking about buying one of those ready-made Wordpress templates I found on a site that sells them to the public. FYI, the site at issue is: yootheme.com. I'd like to make sure that building sites using ready-made templates is NOT a bad thing. Could you please confirm?
Thank you.
-
Thank you, Dan!
All the best to you.
- Sal
-
Not bad at all! Unless there is a very similar site in your industry of a competitor and risk being accused of "copying".
-Dan
-
Hi Dan
Thank you for your detailed answer. Since you seem very prepared in SEO and SEO related to WordPress, please answer this quick question:
Let's pretend I want to build a new site and I like the WordPress template that you can find on this site:
Is it bad, as far as SEO is concerned, that I build my site using the same template I find on another site? Of course, the content and all the structure will be different; the only similar thing is the template.
Thank you very much.
-
Its not bad at all, I would just recommend using free themes available only within WordPress. Maybe someone else knows of a trusted source of free themes. And yes, you can use the free plugins just the same.
-Dan
-
How bad is it to use a free Wordpress theme and just get the plugins as needed for free as well?
-
Thanks for the responses John and 'walrus'
The only two sites I trust to buy themes from are;
You're right, pro perks discounts are here - and woothemes are included.
Then be sure you read my post on WordPress, and look under the "Themes" section for the best way to set up themes once installed. I've never seen a perfect one for SEO. They're all a little wonky.
Basically I say;
"DO use themes for design elements;
- Colors
- Fonts,
- Page layout
- Headers
- Footers
- Basic social media button stuff
Do NOT use themes for SEO stuff, such as
- Indexation
- Analytics codes
- Titles and descriptions
- RSS feeds
- Menu structure (ideally this is done with WordPress Custom Menus)
Let the Yost SEO plugin handle this stuff! Shut off / do not use these types of SEO functions within the themes."
Hope this helps!
-Dan
-
Agree with John, and you have a WooThemes 40% discount code in PRO Perks section!!!!
-
Hi there,
Yep you can find some excellent premium themes that are SEO friendly - WooThemes has some great ones. I'd also recommend installing the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast to ensure your titles and descriptions (as well as other elements) are properly optimised.
Hope that helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to find a good seo company?
Hello there, Can anyone recommend how to go about finding a good seo company?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Google + pages and SEO results...
Hi, Can anyone give me insight into how people are getting away with naming their business by the SEO search term, creating a BS Google + page, then having that page rank high in the search results. I am speaking specifically about the results you get when you Google: "Los Angeles DUI Lawyer". As you can see from my attached screenshot (I'm doing the search in Los Angeles), the FIRST listing is a Google + business. Strangely, the phone number listed doesn't actually take you to a DUI attorney, but rather to some marketing group that never answers the phone. Can anyone give me insight into why Google even allows this? I just find it odd that Google cares so much about the user experience, but have the first result be something completely misleading. I know it sounds like I'm just jealous (which I am, a little), but I find it disheartening that we work so hard on SEO, and someone takes the top spot with an obvious BS page. UupqBU9
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Suggestions for a SEO Review
I think it would be beneficial to have a third party seo review of the network of sites my team and I manage and was wondering if any of you had suggestions for what sort of tests should be done or that we should expect to see done during one of these reviews. We are a small team who has varying seo experience and have been working hard to make improvements to our sites in the past year. Most of our sites have been completely overhauled in the last 12-16 months and seo work that had not been done in the past has been setup, along with some corrections that may have been harming seo. We believe we are on the right track and have learned a good amount about seo in that time, but it would be nice to have some "expert" feedback outside of our office to get a clearer picture on anything we may be missing or some suggested improvements. A sort of double check on the work we have done.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unikey0 -
SEO Blow-Up After Site Redesign
I contracted with a local web design firm - a highly recommended firm - to redo my law practice's Wordpress site. The redesign was done in early April. After the redesign I saw a large drop in rankings across all of my keywords, lost internal page rank, and had a big traffic drop. The site is www.toughtimeslawyer.com. There were a couple of issues that contributed to it; but I'm not sure how to rebuild. The internal URL structure changed completely. I wasn't aware of this until the site went live. I didn't have a sitemap for about a week, then the sitemap plugin they used was not very good and showing errors in Webmaster tools. Last week, I replaced it with Yoast's SEO plugin. The biggest problem is that they setup a subdomain old.toughtimeslawyer.com, without asking me or telling me. The subdomain had all of my content on it. It was not blocked with robots.txt; and it is being cached by Google. I just discovered it today, when I was doing something in my cpanel. I assume that this is creating a duplicate content problem with Google. I'm not sure what steps to take to recover. I am especially concerned about the subdomain old.toughtimeslawyer.com and the best want to handle it with the search engines. Thanks in advance, all advice is appreciated. I've been pulling my hair out for the last few weeks over my rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ToughTimesLawyer0 -
Wordpress and duplicate content
Hi, I have recently installed wordpress and started a blog but now loads of duplicate pages are cropping up for tags and authors and dates etc. How do I do the canonical thing in wordpress? Thanks Ian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jwdl0 -
Does Google hate wordpress?
I have my categories pages set to noindex, follow. I deactivated the author and date based archives, and all the /page/2 /page/3 are noindex. Is this the right approach? I had thought about adding some text to the topic of each category page and then changing them to index. I'm using showing recent post excerpts on the homepage. Another other suggestions? I think two of my sites are in panda for no good reason. It seems like non-wordpress blogs in my industry do better than comparable wordpress sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateV0 -
Are tags an issue in SEO
SEOMoz saw that my tags were duplicate pages. Are tags a serious issue in SEO? Should I remove it entirely to prevent the duplicate pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | visualartistics0 -
Local SEO for franchises
I have a client who franchises an ice cream shop. It started in Utah and there are several stores there. They are ranking well for local searches based in Utah. Now they have opened a store in Federal Way, WA. How can I get the new location to rank for local keywords on the same website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fivestarfranchising0